Most of them are demonstration models that illustrate various aspects of electricity, acoustics, light, magnetism, thermodynamics, and weights and measures.

The current instrument room was built as part of an 1880-1885 extension of the museum, designed to have daylight from both sides for better viewing of the experiments.

The popularity of the study of science and the ideals of the Dutch enlightenment were such that after his death however, when Martin van Marum joined the young Teylers Stichting, this proved quickly to become the emphasis of the society in the years to come.

He started before he even worked there with a proposal to build his large elektriseermachine that forms the center attraction of the instrument room.

This apparatus is the largest flat-plate electrostatic generator of the world and the oldest piece in the room itself, which is filled mostly with items from the 19th century.